Ex-Oil-For-Food Investigator Defends Keeping Of Documents

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
May 9, 2005 5:45 p.m.
UNITED NATIONS (AP)--The former investigator at the center of a dispute between the U.S. Congress and the U.N. said Monday he kept documents from the probe of the Iraq oil-for-food scandal because of my concern that the investigative process and conclusions were flawed.
Robert Parton, in a statement released through his attorney, said he had repeatedly expressed his concerns to the U.N.-appointed committee, adding that he had wanted to keep a record that showed he wasn't associated with the conclusions it made.
The U.N. on Monday filed a petition in U.S. federal court to block Parton from turning over to Congress documents he took with him when he quit a probe of the U.N. oil-for-food program for Iraq.
The highly unusual petition is aimed at quashing three U.S. congressional subpoenas for Parton, an ex-FBI agent who quit the U.N-appointed Independent Inquiry Committee in April, reportedly because he believed it ignored evidence critical of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Parton has already turned over documents from the investigation in response to a subpoena from the House International Relations Committee, chaired by Rep. Henry Hyde, an Illinois Republican. He is also under subpoena to do so for investigations led by Rep. Christopher Shays, a Republican from Connecticut and Sen. Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican.
The chief of the U.N.-appointed committee, former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, sought the petition to quash the subpoenas, and the U.N. filed it in federal court on his behalf. Volcker wants Parton to stop turning over the documents and says his investigation's work could be jeopardized and witnesses' lives put at risk if the files get out.
In separate statement, Parton's lawyer, Lanny Davis, said Parton would comply with the congressional subpoenas unless the court orders him not to.
We trust and expect that if a federal court so orders, the Congress will refrain from seeking to hold Mr. Parton in contempt, Davis wrote.
The petition, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, asks that Parton be barred from further giving out the documents and that all documents he has given out so far be returned.
The U.N.'s battle with the congressional committees has become a major sideshow in the oil-for-food controversy. Annan created the Volcker probe last year to investigate fraud in the $64 billion program, but the probe has itself been thrust into the spotlight over accusations that it covered up evidence critical of Annan.